Helga Jean loved to play. Her favorite toy was a doll named Abby. Abby had red yarn hair, a button nose, and a baby blue dress. Helga quite liked her and took her everywhere.
She took her to the park.
She took her to school.
She took her to the store.
And everywhere they went, people would say, “Hello, Helga. Hello, Miss Dolly.” They were very kind to the two of them.
One night at dinner, Helga ate her dinner with Abby on her lap. She took spoonfuls of potato and gravy and smeared them against Abby’s mouth.
“Dear, we’re going to have to clean that doll,” Helga’s mother told her.
“Will I get her back before bed?” Helga asked sweetly.
“Of course, sweetheart.”
Her mother put Abby in the wash, and the machine spun around and around, getting all the stains out. Then Abby went in the dryer for a quick blow-dry. Afterwards, she was ready for bed.
Helga held Abby close to her as she laid in bed. Her father tucked her in, saying, “You sure do like that doll.”
“She’s the best doll in the world,” Helga boasted. “If only she were real.”
“Well, that’s a grand idea,” her father said and kissed her goodnight.
Helga closed her eyes and yawned until she gently fell asleep with Abby nestles in her arms.
“Excuse me.”
A little voice woke Helga up in the middle of the night. There was a man sitting on the side of her bed. He was skinny with long, white grandpa-hair and a spooky top hat wrapped in purple ribbon.
“Who are you?” Helga asked.
“I hear you have a wish for me,” the man smiled. No matter how hard Helga looked, she could not find his eyes. They must have been under his hat, she thought.
“Are you a genie?” Helga asked.
“I’m like one,” he said. “You want to make your doll real.”
“Yes,” Helga sat up and hugged Abby tighter. “Yes, I think that’d be amazing.”
“Well, I can make her alive, but I need something in return,” the man told her.
“I’ll give you any toy you want. Abby is all I need,” Helga insisted.
“I don’t want your toys,” the man kindly declined. “What Abby needs is someone to switch places with.”
“Switch places?” Helga thought.
“Yes, do you know anyone who would do such a thing?” he asked.
“No,” the girl sighed and looked at her doll’s sewn-on smile. Her face was happy, but in her glossy button eyes, she saw tears. “I’ll do it,” Helga agreed. “I’ll do anything for my Abby.”
“Then we have a deal,” the man said, shaking her hand. Then he reached over and patted her head. “Go to sleep now, and tomorrow you get your wish,” he said, running a finger along Abby’s face.
Helga closed her eyes and let her head hit her pillow. That night, she dreamt of fire and smoke. Very peculiar.

Helga opened her eyes, and the world had grown in her sleep. She looked around and found herself swimming through the covers. Beside her was a large girl, sound asleep with red hair and a button nose.
Helga looked at her hand and saw she had doll mitts. She looked across the room to her mirror and discovered she was a doll. A cloth doll like Abby was with orange hair in her yellow pajamas. That means her dream was true.
“Abby! Abby!” Helga whispered as loud as she could as she shook the girl’s side. “Wake up! Wake up! You’re alive!”
The red-haired girl mumbled until she blinked her eyes awake. “What?” she muttered and shrieked at the sound of her own voice. She fell out of bed onto the floor. “What…What is this?” she asked, fumbling around. Looking at her hands, her hair and her baby blue dress.
“You’re alive, Abby,” Helga gasped, standing on the bed. “Now we can talk for hours on end and play together every day.”
Abby, sitting on her knees on the floor, was speechless, but the gears in her head turned more than they’ve ever had before.
Knock-knock. “Sweetie? Oh, Sweetie?”
Helga recognized the voice of her mother. “Oh, won’t she be surprised?” Helga the Doll snickered.
The door opened and Helga’s mother stood there with a morning smile. “There you are,” she said to Abby. “Breakfast will be ready soon.” She went and helped Abby off the floor. “I suggest you get dressed, sweetheart.”
Abby the Girl did not answer, and Helga the Doll tried to get her mother’s attention. “Look, I’m a doll like Abby.” But her mother failed to notice. Before she knew it, her mother walked out of the room, failing to see she was alive.
“Breakfast?” Abby whispered and heard her stomach growl. “I’ve never eaten before,” she thought.
“Why didn’t she recognize me?” Helga was wondering.
Abby’s glossy eyes went right through her. She went to Helga’s closet. “These clothes are hideous,” she sighed, seeing all the doll clothes she once had were now fit for a normal girl. She walked through the closet and saw nothing that was suitable for her.
“I got you those clothes for Christmases and birthdays,” Helga sat at the edge of the bed and said. “If your clothes are big, mine must be small.”
Abby did not acknowledge her and went out of the room.
“Wait for me,” Helga said and jumped down, running and stumbling out into the hall.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” Helga’s father said once Abby reached the kitchen. Helga watched from the doorway as her father read the paper and her mother set food on the table.
“Go on,” her mother smiled. “Sit. Eat.”
Abby sat in Helga’s chair. She stared at the eggs and hashbrowns on her plate. She grabbed her fork to have a little nibble. Soon she was engulfing her breakfast.
“Slow down, Sweetheart,” her father said. “You’ll get a stomachache.”
Abby chewed slower.
“Where’s your doll?” Helga’s mother asked, giving her husband a plate. “You always sit with her.”
“Oh yes, Helga,” the father looked up from his paper and laughed.
Abby let out a groan and got up, fetching Helga from the other room. The doll’s body was limp and silent. No matter how hard Helga tried on the inside to speak, her body wouldn’t move or make a sound. Abby threw her on the table and went back to eating. At one point, she stopped and asked Helga’s parents, “What is my name?”
“Oh don’t be silly, Sweetheart,” her mother sat down and joined them.
“What is my name?” Abby asked sternly. “You know Helga, but who am I?”
“You’re our daughter, for goodness sake,” her mother snickered, placing a hand on her husband’s wedding band. “And we are very happy to have you.”
Abby vacantly stared at the two adults. Then she grabbed Helga’s doll body and went to her room with a look of bewilderment stuck on her face. Helga was placed on the bed as Helga went to the mirror.
“What am I?” she asked.
Helga pushed her body up to its stumpy feet and said, “You’re a real girl, just as the man said.”
She looked back at Helga. “What man?”
“The grandpa man,” Helga explained. “He visited us last night and said we could switch places.”
Abby walked to the bed. For once, she looked over Helga. “You did that for me?”
“Of course. Now we can talk together and be best friends,” Helga dreamt, but was sorrowful when Abby snickered.
“Friends? You think we’re friends?” Abby wickedly laughed. “I’ve been stuck with you since you could grab me with your sticky fingers. But now- Now it’s my turn to play house.”
Abby grabbed Helga by the waist and marched her to the closet. She flung her inside and slammed the door. Helga was left crying in lonely, cold darkness.

An unknown amount of time passed before the door was opened. Perhaps it was a day. Helga could once hear her mother tucking Abby into bed.
But when the door opened, Abby walked in with a bundle of clothes, not acknowledging the doll on the floor.
“I hope you like your new clothes, Sweetie,” her mother said, standing in Helga’s room as Abby put away her clothes.
“I will… Thank you, Mother,” Abby said, sounding aloof. “I’ll like them very much.”
“Put on whatever you’d like and we can go to the park.”
“Yes, Mother,” Abby said and plucked Helga from the floor. They went to the park where Abby spied some younger children playing rough with their toys.
“Hello there,” Abby called in a mild voice. “Would you like to play with my doll?”
“Yes! Yes! Please!” the children spoke up.
Abby flung Helga amidst their playthings and watched as they tugged her back and forth. Then she heard the bell of a little snack cart, so she went to get herself a cup of hot chocolate and sit on a bench watching Helga play.
After some roughhousing and more tug of war, the children grew bored of Helga and her yellow pajamas. They tossed her on the bench next to Abby before going off to get bored of another toy.
“You are a lousy toy,” Abby muttered, swirling around her hot chocolate. “But it’s not your fault,” she said. “You weren’t made for this.” Abby took a sip of hot chocolate and smiled. “Are you hungry, Dolly?” she snickered. “Have some cocoa.” She poured the remainder of her drink on Helga’s still doll face.
“Would you look at that?” Abby whined. “You’re all dirty. I’d better wash you.”
Abby walked Helga over to the pond and dunked her in the water. She pulled her out only to dunk her again. She repeated this until she grew frustrated and threw Helga into the middle of the pond.
“Good luck finding your way home,” she sighed and found her new mother, who took her back to Helga’s house.
Doll-Helga dragged herself out of the pond, and while everyone was looking elsewhere, she crawled her way back to her house and collapsed in the yard. She must get inside, and fortunate for her, she found an opened window. Helga slumped her doll body through the window and fell on the carpet of her living room.
“Sweetheart?” Helga’s mother said across the house until Abby met her in the living room. “Why is your doll on the floor? Don’t you like her?”
“Oh I love her, Mother,” Abby lied through her teeth flawlessly. “She got wet at the park so I left her by the window to dry.”
“Well, you shouldn’t leave her lying around,” the mother said. “Why don’t I put Helga in the wash for you?” Then she grabbed Helga and took her to the laundry room while Abby followed with a grimace on her face.
“Funny, how you call her ‘she’ and me an ‘it’,” Abby snarled, folding her arms.
“What are you talking about?” Helga’s mother said, putting Helga in the washing machine. Helga couldn’t see them in the dark box but she could still hear them.
“Do you even know my real name?” Abby said with a shout.
“Of course I do, Sweetheart.”
“Stop saying that! You don’t mean it!”
“Don’t raise your voice, young lady,” her mother said sternly before throwing clothes in the washer and turning it on. Helga was washed away in all the dirty laundry. And while she worried if Abby’s hurt her mother, she wept but produced no tears.
Her father came by to take the clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer. He paid no mind to Helga as he put in the dryer sheets and turned on the machine.
When Helga came out nice and dry, she was pleased to be rescued by her mother, but then she felt fear as she was carried back to her room.
Abby was on her bed, clinging to the pillow when her mother sat on the edge and talked to her. “It’s alright to be upset, but you need to tell me what’s wrong.”
Abby sighed, “You couldn’t help me, believe me.”
Her mother sighed as well and placed Helga by her side before leaving. Abby took her and threw her across the room, turning over on the bed. Not long after she was hit by a toy duck. She glanced over to see Helga the Doll standing ferociously.
“You! Are so! Mean!” Helga ranted. “I wanted to play with you and be best friends!”
“You call this playing?” Abby sat up and presented the half broken toys on the floor. “You are a murderer to toys!”
“I gave you life!” Helga shouted, stomping around with her fists in the air.
“No, you didn’t!” Abby snapped and stood up. “The magic man did, and I hope he comes back so I can be rid of you!”
“Why are you even so mad at me?” Helga cried. “What’d I ever do to you?”
“You treat me like an object!” Abby pointed to herself. “You don’t treat me like she did!” Abby ceased her anger and fell to the floor, sitting in self-despair.
Helga’s anger was quenched. She tiptoed forward and pried, “Who is she?”
“My original friend…” Abby whispered. “The one I was made for.” She reached for her black slipper and pulled it off with her sock. On her foot was written the name, “Sweetheart.”
“My real name is Orchid,” Abby said, not baring to look at Helga. “I was made for Sweetheart. She was a magician’s daughter. He brought me to life so we could play together. She treated me like a living person. She made me feel alive.”
“Ab-” Helga stopped herself. “Orchid, I’m sorry. What happened to her?”
“She grew up, and I got lost. I was no longer alive,” she admitted. “I have been stuck in a lifeless body being puppeted by children for years. No one even knows my name. It feels like I don’t exist.”
“You’re real to me,” Helga patted her on the knee. “I’m sorry for what I’ve put you through.”
“I’m sorry too,” Orchid sighed. “You actually weren’t the worst child to own me.”
Helga smiled a tad and Orchid felt good enough to join her.
“Did my pigeons make up?” came a voice. They looked up to see the magic man in his hat and robes.
“Juliah,” Orchid gasped as he knelt down by her side.
“Hello, dear,” he hummed, running his hand down her face. “Are we ready to go back?”
“Back to what?” Orchid asked.
“Back to being a doll, of course,” Juliah grinned. “It is why you were made.”
Orchid bowed her head, face full of sorrow. “If it means anything,” Helga said aloud. “I don’t want Orchid to suffer alone, so could I stay a doll too?”
Juliah and Orchid both smiled at each other and with a spell, the two were whisked away in Juliah’s arms. Their bodies plush and soft as they were carried into a little workshop.
“Two more for you, Smek,” Juliah said to a big burly man. He handed the girls off to him.
“Thank you. These will do nicely,” the borish creature muttered. Then he placed the dolls side by side on his shelf of toys. He wrote a little note to put on their display: The Sweetheart Collection.